Hi! This is going to be my first real blog! I think I’m going to do all of it in English so the people I meet here can read it too if they want to. Besides, I notice I’m getting used to speaking English (even after only a few days! )

Monday (21st March) at 8am I left my house in the Netherlands after packing my last stuff in my backpack. I’ve got 2 backpacks: one big red one (14 kilos) and one for hand luggage. With my family, I went to the airport where we searched for a parking spot and got inside.

I needed to check-in my baggage at the same place they checked my documents. It took such a long time to wait!

As a surprise, my uncle came to the airport to say goodbye, which was really nice! With the whole family, we drank something and then, unfortunately, the time came to say goodbye…

It was a bit sad to say goodbye but I was looking forward to my adventure and it was only for 3.5 months. After a hug, (and another one) I went to the douane and after that, I could finally get on the plane.

It was a really long flight (10 hours). I sat next to a Ukrainian man who was travelling with an old lady from Ukraine to Vancouver.

On the plane, I felt sick all the time but unfortunately, I couldn’t get some sleep because the sun was shining all the time. That was because we were flying back in time: I would land at 3pm local time while the flight started at 1pm in the Netherlands.

We flew a long time above Iceland which was really cool: there was ice and glaciers everywhere!

Of course, my ears hurt badly as always while landing, but the cabin crew was really nice. A few minutes later I could get off the plane. I heard there was a delay in the departure so I waited a while, but I was happy to see that my backpack arrived: sometimes they may leave baggage behind ‘cause of lack of space in the plane.

Everything was going as planned ‘till this time so I took a taxi which brought me to the B&B address that I booked at home.

But that’s where things started being complicated: when I arrived at the B&Bit didn’t look good: there was police around and guys with wigs and long hair were smoking so the whole place smelled like marijuana.

It just all made a really bad impression: the taxi driver wouldn't even let me in house. While the taxi driver waited in his car I asked one of the guys if this was the BnB. They told me they were the owners and that Amanda (my host who contacted me for the booking) wasn’t home. They said they were evicted from their home by the police and that I needed to find another place.

I’m not sure if they spoke the truth about saying they were the owners but it was pretty clear I couldn’t stay there for the night…

I got stressed out cause it took a long time to find this place where you don’t have to be 19 years old to make a booking for the night.

In the taxi, I called my parents (it was in the middle of the night there).

First, they told me that maybe it was a good idea to get to a police station but luckily they found another B&B at booking.com so we drove there.

After a few minutes of ringing and knocking, a woman opened the door. She said she didn’t run the B&B: She just lived at the house with a few others and she didn’t want to talk to my parents on the phone. So I asked her to call the host of the B&B to ask if there was a room for me for that night. She said he didn’t (even tho on the site stood there was).

That was really bad ‘cause I didn’t know what to do now.

But that was when a guy who also rent a room there came from upstairs. He was wondering what was going on and heard me struggling.

He told me that I could stay in his room and pay him while he spend the night at his girlfriend's home!

That was really, really nice because I needed a sleeping place and I was very tired. So I agreed to that plan.

So that’s how I ended up in a random student's room, in a weird old creaky house… But anything was better than nothing at this point and the guy was nice.

I locked the door and went sleeping at 6pm and woke up at 2am but spend the whole night there with just laying in my bed end sleep a bit and waking up again ‘cause of the jet-leg.

At 8am I went outside with my big backpack to the bus stop and rode to downtown where I took another bus to Nanaimo.

The public transport in and around Vancouver is really well organized: there are a lot of buses and you can just pay by cash so it’s pretty easy to get from one place to another.

After the buses, I went on the 1.5-hour ferry ride to Nanaimo. Unfortunately, it was really foggy and rainy outside so there wasn’t a great view… But it was nice to be on the ferry. I just walked a bit outside (and got all wet), listened to music, get some coffee: It didn’t take a long time ‘till I got on land at Vancouver Island.

Once I was in Nanaimo I took the bus to the Gabriola ferry which took only 20 minutes. Although it was still really grey, it stopped raining so I decided to stand outside and watch the islands while on the water: it was really beautiful even without the sun. But I can’t wait to see the view in nice weather conditions!

And there I was: finally on Gabriola island! Jenn (the woman from the first Workaway address) told me that her husband Will would pick me up in his fire truck, so that wasn’t hard to find.

While we were driving over the island it seemed like a nice place with a lot of hills and forest.

After a 10 minute ride, he dropped me off at their address, a small farm in the middle of the island

Will told me he had to go back to work, but there were 2 other Workaway girls from the age of 18 and 19 who showed me around the place.

I was really happy to be there after the long trip ‘cause I was really tired. I’ll tell you in the next blog how the family is and how it is living here.

See ya!

~Sophie